Michelle stared beyond the darkness before her to where she was sure the ceiling was. Beside her on a short solid pine table the alarm clocks red digital numbers blared into the night. It was 3:27 AM and she sighed. So far pregnancy was everything people had warned her about. Her back ached, her feet were sore, at the most ungodly of hours, she was hungry.

Tony was asleep beside her, his back to her and his torso slowly rising and falling with every inhaled breath that fuelled his dreams. He always slept in just pajamas bottoms, never feeling the need to keep any warmer in their apartment. Sleeping with two people in the same bed would often keep him awake all night sweating, Michelle often waking to find him cooling down on their balcony.

Michelle rolled sideways and ran a hand over his colored shoulders bringing it to a rest or his bare bicep. Tony inhaled hard as he was suddenly awake; his groggy face full of worry and his heart skipping a few beats in his chest. He rolled onto his back and his elbow collided with Michelle's protruding belly. He immediately pressed a protective hand to her abdomen and apologized with a raspy voice.

"Michelle, what's wrong?" he whispered quickly as he rubbed his eyes open even further. "Are you ok?" he mumbled incoherently into the darkness as he sat up propped on one elbow. It was a new moon and there was no welcoming silver light illuminating their bedroom tonight.

"I'm fine," Michelle told him, resting a warm hand over his on their unborn child's maternal chamber. Michelle felt Tony relax under her hand and he audibly breathed into the darkness before flopping back onto the warm cotton sheets. Michelle smiled and shuffling closer to him, pressing herself as close to Tony as her belly would allow and resting her head onto his arm.

"Why did you wake me?" Tony asked her while he rubbed his loose gripping hand over the fabric of her pajamas. Michelle pressed her hand to his naked chest, immediately feeling guilty before she revealed her reasons for waking him. Tony was genuinely tired and his eyes had already pulled themselves closed once more once he knew Michelle was all right.

Michelle paused for a while, childlike in her approach for her prize. "I'm hungry," she admitted with a pout that she turned into a soft kiss against Tony's side. His skin prickled to life and the hairs on his arms reached up into the air, waiting for more.

Tony let out a light laugh, his body too tired to manage much else. "I'll get you whatever you want," he told her, turning to her in the darkness. Michelle's eyes were adjusted now and she could make out the shadowed outline of Tony's features inches from hers. Tony reached up a hand and plucked Michelle's from his chest, pulled it to his lips and planted a kiss against the smooth skin of her hand.

Michelle's face wrinkled when her remorse hit her once more. "We don't have any of what I want," she confessed with a shy voice. Tony sighed and dropped their hands back to his chest where his left hers and rubbed against his forehead.

"What time is it?" he prodded with a whine. Michelle rolled backwards and the burning red numbers invaded her eyes. When Michelle rolled from his arm Tony threw his legs off the edge of the bed and sat up, his body still half asleep and lacking strength in its relaxed state.

"It's 3:40," Michelle confessed with a grimace when Tony groaned softly. Michelle crawled across their bed and wrapped her arms around Tony's broad shoulders, pressing her rounded belly to his back. "I'm sorry," she chimed nuzzling her head under his chin. Tony laid a flat palm over her arms and held her to him for a second before he patted her reassuringly.

"It's ok," he grunted in a drained voice. Michelle pressed a kiss to his temple and he smiled when she clambered back under the covers on her side of the bed. With his eyes still half closed Tony pushed himself from the bed and reached for a pair of slacks hanging over a wicker chair. Michelle squealed with joy into the room while he pulled them up and over his pajama bottoms and then slid his sock less feet into a pair of sneakers. "What do you want?" he asked as he dressed himself.

"I really want a cheese and chicken pizza," Michelle rolled off her order rapidly. "Oh, and can you get them to add sweet corn too?" she pleaded. Tony screwed up his face and made a sound of disgust at her concoction, his own stomach rejecting the thought of the food item.

"Where am I going to get a pizza with…" he paused before realizing that his words were wasted on the four months pregnant Michelle tucked up in their warm bed. "Never mind. I'll find somewhere," he sighed.

"Thank you," Michelle beamed from the bed as he made his way around to her side. "Try to hurry," she teased as he leant down for a quick kiss. Tony snorted at her remark but couldn't help but smile at her words as their lips met and then were pulled apart as he left the bedroom.

Tony had trawled the entire city for a twenty-four hour pizza place that could fulfill his request and hadn't thrown him out laughing. It was almost 5 AM when he returned home, his efforts to keep quite thwarted by the dim early morning lighting. Tony's sneakers were kicked off by the front door and his sweaty feet stuck to the laminate with each step, leaving an outline of his feet on the surface.

Tony rested the pizza for one sized box on the back on the cushiony sofa while he pulled his jacket off, his knee holding the box up to stop it from falling onto the floor. His balance on one leg was poor at best and he hopped back and forth on the floor with tiny thuds. His keys hung from his mouth where his teeth gripped furiously at the key ring and they rattled gentle as he swayed.

Pulling the keys from his mouth, and with both feet now planted firmly onto the floor, Tony rested the bunch of metal next to the phone. He pushed the box further onto the couch cushions and on baited breath pulled his hands away slowly; ready to catch it should it fall. Tony popped the button on his pants and let them fall, the coinage in his pocket more than willing to drag the garments to the floor. They landed with a clink and he stepped from them. Exhausted and laden with the most disgusting pizza known to the human race, Tony padded down the heated flooring to their bedroom.

No sound came from the room when Tony pushed down the chrome door handle and the door swung open. Deep red rays of the rising sun peeked through the heavy drawn dark brown curtains and edged their way across the floor and onto the corner of the bedpost. Tony smiled to himself when he saw Michelle. She was curled up on his side of the bed, face pressed lovingly into his pillow and her hands grasped at the scented material eagerly.

Tony set the pizza box down on a soft padded vanity stool Michelle kept next to the door. It was square and velvety to touch and the pizza barely heated its surface, as it was almost cold. Tony tiptoed towards the bed, his feet barely making a sound on the floor, his heels raised into the air hidden by his dangling bottoms.

The smile never left his face as Tony slid under the covers of Michelle's side of the bed, the crisp sheets cold and unwelcoming. Michelle had been asleep for at least an hour and her side of their luxurious king size bed had not felt the warmth of her body once. Tony's body shivered slightly as it hit the cold fabric and he sucked in a small breath through his teeth making a hissing sound as he did so.

Michelle didn't stir and she was serene as she slept, her cheek pushed upwards against Tony's pillow taking the corner of her mouth with it. She looked like she was smiling but her soft snoring and shallow breathing said otherwise. Tony pressed his body into hers, her warm back immediately radiating his body while he snaked a hand over her hip and rested his flat palm to her stomach.

"Michelle?" he whispered into her ear, his hot breath tickling at her non-responsive skin. "I got your pizza," he told her with a smile.

"Mmmm," she breathed, her mouth never opening to let the sound out but instead it vibrating from her chest and out of her nose as she slept. Michelle did not stir as Tony watched her, her body lying as still as it had when he first entered the bedroom. Tony yawned next to her, his exhaustion finally catching up to him and he laid his head down on the pillow behind her and did not protest when his eyes fell shut. Tony's body felt heavy and seemed to fade away but his slumber did not last long when he heard her finally get up and start munching on the pizza.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed pulling his hand on her stomach in terror that was soon replaced with joy. Michelle's head snapped towards his and she giggled nervously. Tony sat frozen beside her, his hand hovering in the air above her stomach.

"Did you feel that?" Michelle asked him breathlessly, pressing his hand to her stomach again. She rested her hands over the top of his as they waited for the tiny feet inside to kick out at the walls of its protective home once more. Tony nodded with a held breath as his hand splayed anxiously across the tiny kicking.

The baby kicked out again, the skin beneath Tony's palm being pressed to his skin forcefully. Tony nodded quickly at Michelle with a pale face but a wide toothy grin. "I think she likes it," he said to her and the baby kicked out again.

"The pizza I mean" he said.

Michelle felt a wave of emotion flood through her, and the tiny life growing inside of her felt even more special now that it was interacting with his father. Until now Michelle had questioned her ability as a mother. The second she felt her baby move inside of her she knew she had nothing to worry about.